Trump 'penned political suicide note' at every Covid press conference, former Australian PM says
"If Donald Trump had handled the pandemic half-decently he would have won the election,” Howard said.
"He was headed towards a victory until the pandemic hit. It was his mishandling of that because, in the end, the public, when threatened, want their leaders to defend them against the threat.”
Howard said competent public health responses had increased the popularity of political leaders across Australia.
“That’s why Scott Morrison has very high approvals, Gladys Berejiklian has, our friend [Mark McGowan] in Western Australia has, and even our friend in Victoria [Daniel Andrews] is surviving – he’s more than surviving, politically, he is quite perpendicular at the present time,” the former Liberal leader said. “Now part of that is a perception that difficult as it all was, and so forth, he got the show through.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/17/trump-penned-political-suicide-note-at-every-covid-press-conference-former-australian-pm-says
I don't believe I've ever agreed with John Howard on anything at all, but he's right on this. It was mind-boggling to see - from the denials that the pandemic existed, to claims it would "just go away", to the complete inaction, from personal responsibility through to the care of the public. Everything Trump has done on COVID has been wrong.
I still wonder why, with repeated outbreaks occurring all over the world, other governments don't look at how it was handled in New Zealand and Australia. Our leaders moved fast and hard; it's not over yet, we can't kid ourselves, but we're doing pretty well, considering everything that's happened.
And interestingly, three of our state Premiers are Labor and two are conservative, so their actions have been non-partisan, and they can all take credit for what they've managed to do.
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I still wonder why, with repeated outbreaks occurring all over the world, other governments don't look at how it was handled in New Zealand and Australia. Our leaders moved fast and hard; it's not over yet, we can't kid ourselves, but we're doing pretty well, considering everything that's happened.
I don't understand either, well, in fact I do understand completely but to me it is inexcusable to put the economy in front of peoples lives. It is quite clear the AU/NZ model works and works very well and if they followed through with proper restrictions after the first immense lock down here in the EU we could all be in a better place right now.
Instead I have to drop my wife at work to do a job she can do at home online because it's a badge of honour to be able to open up again.
I'm livid at Spain and the EU for putting my family at threat and will not ever forget or forgive that, wasting a year of our children's lives as well.
Thankfully today is the last day that is required to attend work so we will hole up again until January and reassess the options again, only leave the house once a week for a shop and go to the communal rubbish bins(which by the way the rest of the world moved on from sometime around 1918 for health reasons
).
That is the only realistic option for us now, to bunker down, hope for the best and wait for a vaccine to show up. It's unlikely that we will have much of a say on which one it is either.
And yeah, pains me to agree with little johnny as well although I don't see the same level of political suicide in the EU, people tend to agree with this shit show. Then again they have still arguably handled things better than the orange man.
